Hummingbird Factory

How Hummingbird Factory got started:After college and design school, I found myself working for a menswear manufacturer in Knoxville, itching to start making clothes and accessories myself. While designing and producing a line of skirts, I quickly became disenchanted with most of the fabrics and prints that were available to me, that reflected someone else’s personality and voice. I wanted my designs to be me through and through, and printing fabric myself seemed the best place to start. So I made my husband figure out how to screenprint and then teach me. Our first design was a Sweet Knox market bag that sold out at our local farmers’ market.

What you’d like everyone to know about your products:Nearly all of the fabrics I use are reclaimed from vintage linens to beyond-repair clothing, ripped apart, printed and stitched back up in the Hummingbird Factory into small, useful little items. I want each piece to be a bright spot in your day, kind of like a real hummingbird. I have a ridiculous amount of fun rifling through vintage textiles, thinking about what design might work, trying out different ink colors, or settling on a lining with some unexpected contrast.

Your inspiration:It would be silly to say that anything pretty inspires me, but it’s true – Mexican tiles, Indian block prints, all gorgeous. But there is another source of inspiration that seems to be the blank canvas for everything else – a county fair.

In late summer, my husband and I frequent these and they’re filled with things I love to look at – dusty mules in all their leather and silver finery, plain block typefaces on feedsacks and lard bins, bright red tractors, speckled hens. In between bites of funnel cake, I take dozens and dozens of photos to capture the earnestness of these things, their utility and their simplicity – that’s what I’m after.

Now would ya look at that:Meet Ashley Moore, founder of Hummingbird Factory, based out of Nashville.